I promised to think.
Thunk I have.

Results:

Story has become a loaded word in internet discourse. The ways it has been loaded up from different sides shall be assumed as being known. I for one, have been guilty of loading it up with a negative connotation.
I equalled it with railroading, onanistic playstyle, player rape, method acting and all kinds of similar stuff I think of very lowly.

Are those connotations making sense? Do they really capture something?
Does the use of the word in it`s current guise help discourse?

First, let me tell you that I am of the uttermost and sternest belief, that there is a cultural divide in the hobby. Actually, there are even more cleavages, but for simplicity I will assume there is only one big one.

Story is supposed to either relate or be disconnected from the RPG hobby.

This is the argument, at it`s barest bones.

The first problem arises from the definition of Roleplaying Games, people all over the 'Net confuse a lot of stuff there.

Roleplaying is a method, call it technique, if you like. It shall be hereby defined as:

Extrapolation of virtual situations through verbal negotiation.

What`s a roleplaying game then? Anytime, the method of roleplay is used for leisure, i.g. in a game

It`s easy to show, that the first instances of roleplay use  were of a certain ilk, played by certain people in a specific context. Namely miniature wargamers with an interest in fantasy/sf. They created D&D, and thereby Adventure Gaming as we know it.

So, as RPGs existed only in the guise of Adventure Games for quite some time, they becams synonymous.

Wait! Where does the Role enter?, you might say.
I say, to negotiate virtual situations it is very convenient, to assign different particiators different roles. these can be parties, countries, military units, cliques, any other group, or individuals. As we have seen, RPGs became prominent through D&D, which main revolutions were:

- focus on individual fantasy playing piece
- facilitating the method of roleplay for some parts of the game

Thusly, the

Roleplay == play/portrayal of individual character

is a fallacy stemming from history. That`s why I talk about role assumption, when others talk about roleplay. Nobody will change this, as the word Roleplay itself easily lends to this assumption. Thereby, we should stick to Method of Roleplay when we want to reference it.

Can the MoR be used for other stuff besides fantasy adventure gaming? Sure! It has been and will be used way more often in education and planning or even therapy, than for leisure activities. That`s why we have to differentiate it from role assumption commonly referred to just as roleplay.

Now we know what an RPG is, let`s look at story:

Story is a big word, with a well understood place in english language, as well as a wide range of meaning.


Which is the meaning I am so against to have in my games. Easy, it`s the dramatic element.

When someone says, he likes to create a story with his game, then I assume he does not mean just "narrative".
A narrative can be formed with RPGs and as a matter of fact everytime the MoR is used for anything, well everything that happens can be made into a narrative.
Thusly, we can renounce the possibility that the person in question is meaning story after the aforementioned "weak" point of view.

What does he mean, when saying story?

Well actually nobody knows. If anybody knew, there wouldn`t have been so much trainwreck discussions, and even worse trainwreck games, especiall by people who all wanted story.

So, which kind of story do I want to keep out of my game?
Easy, remember, the dramatic type. This is to say, there are a lot of people, who, for historical reasons have encountered the MoR in the guise of Adventure Games, while not coming from a tradition of wargaming. Some of them even come from a background of comic books, fantasy novels and TV-Shows. And some of them don`t want or cannot get into the wargaming mindset. Some of them want to recreate the drama from comic books and TV-Shows and Blockbuster Movies. Of course they can use RPGs for it, as RPGs have the MoR in them, one of the most powerful methods humans have for emulating something. So they go out, and recreate the dramatic strucure of their idols. And this is where any regular (war-)game element comes to a screeching halt. Either you emulate dramatic structures, or you have freedom of participants actions, both do not go together. This shift in aims is responsible for most, if not all conflicts in gaming and has divided the RPG hobby into distinct hobbies, but not in a harsh and clear cut manner, but in a hazy and fudgy sort of way.

In conclusion, I can say:

- story as a word is too broad to convey precise meaning
- the actual implied meaning has to be guessed
- most of the time story implies "having dramatic structure"
- the precise kind of dramatic structure is even then unknown
- whatever you do with the MoR as long as you use it as a leisure activity,  
   you are playing RPGs

Harking back to my initial questions:

Are those connotations making sense?

Yes.

Do they really capture something?

Yes.

Does the use of the word in it`s current guise help discourse?

No.

Quote from: SettembriniRoleplaying is a method, call it technique, if you like. It shall be hereby defined as:

Extrapolation of virtual situations through verbal negotiation.

I am a bear of very little brain, and large words bother me.  Can you say that any more simply, or is this the most you can simplify it without losing its meaning and precision?

Quote from: SettembriniEither you emulate dramatic structures, or you have freedom of participants actions, both do not go together.

Oooh!  That's a bold assertion there.  Do you know it to be bold (and controversial)?  Or are you trying to say something that is obvious to you and might well be obvious to me, if I understood your intent more clearly?

QuoteI am a bear of very little brain, and large words bother me. Can you say that any more simply, or is this the most you can simplify it without losing its meaning and precision?

Ahh, no. Everybody does it, nothing special.

MoR equals

People talk to each other to resolve what will happen next in a make-believe situation.

Like, when the Player says:
Player:"I listen at the door"
GM: "You hear nothing"
Player:"I put a glass on the door and listen again"
GM: "You hear chinese voices."

QuoteOooh!  That's a bold assertion there.  Do you know it to be bold (and controversial)?  

I know it`s controversial, but I think it`s true. Reality allows for hybrids and shades of grey, though. Still, it`s an axis of exchange.

With "axis of exchange," I think you've really hit the nail on the head.  Absolute freedom is sacrificed for plot and vice versa.  This axis allows for a look at how a game is played without appeals to some sort of Platonic RPG that will solve all our problems.

Settembrini, you've illustrated the "story" better than I've ever seen.  Well done.

Quote from: SettembriniPeople talk to each other to resolve what will happen next in a make-believe situation.

So ... like ... Diplomacy?

Quote from: SettembriniI know it`s controversial, but I think it`s true. Reality allows for hybrids and shades of grey, though. Still, it`s an axis of exchange.

I suppose it depends on how you're thinking of it.  A game can, for instance, allow you to do most anything, but strongly reward you for doing certain things.  That looks (to me) like it supports both freedom and guidance.  So the "axis of exchange" rings a bit hollow for me ... but, like I said, that may be because I'm misreading what you mean by it.

Verbal? French-maid-role-playing laughs at your paltry communication efforts!

O RLY?

Quote from: Settembrinicleavages

:boobies:     :boobs:

I failed my will roll.

Quote from: SettembriniReality allows for hybrids and shades of grey, though. Still, it`s an axis of exchange.

Settembrini, I really think you are on to something in this thread.    The end result that I want from games is strongly influenced by those "storied" sources you mentioned, comic books and space operas in particular.   However, I get the most pleasure out of achieving those ends via the tried and true methods of adventure gaming.  I think that's a lengthy and arduous process only acheivable by regular campaign play.  Because in the grognard approach you should fail to be awesome at least as often as you succeed.  The story game people want to catapult over that process and get straight to the cool, but the price they seem to pay is a lot of tiny, super-focused games that only support a few hours of play.

BTW, I did not have a wargaming background, unless you want to count a little messing around with chess before I discovered D&D.  Yet I highly value the wargamey parts of roleplaying.  This leads me to suspect that either sometimes you over-value having grognard chops to play D&D the grognardy way or else Tom Moldvay and Gary Gygax knew what they were doing when they wrote the '81 Basic Rules and the DMG.  Those two texts are the Genesis and Exodus of my own personal relationship to the hobby.

Quote from: SettembriniI promised to think.
Thunk I have

....

Does the use of the word in it`s current guise help discourse?

No.

Story is a useful word because it's probably the way most of the world would express a common goal of role-playing gaming: that is, to produce an enjoyable fiction with certain literary elements.

I think a lot of people want a "decent story" from their games -- and I'm not just talking about White Wolf players. I'm talking about a sizable number of D&D players who want:

1) Interesting characters who are consistent and well drawn
2) A sequence of events that is meaningful in some identifiably human way (e.g. important beyond the win/lose conditions of a war game)
3) Reasonably standard structure (action rises to climax, climax occurs, coda follows)

There are a lot of people who want this stuff from their RPGs -- maybe as a secondary priority, but still as an important one.

RPG's -- most of them, anyway -- are pretty good at delivering this.

If you leave "story" out of the discussion, you're not able to elegantly or clearly talk about about stuff that's important to a significant audience.

And I think Story is mainly problematic as a result of other issues:

All kinds of problems can happen in pursuit of "story" -- especially if it's pursued clumsily, with little skill, or without respect for other people around the table (e.g. railroading, or simply failure to develop interesting NPC's and initial conditions).

Story can *also* be problematic if the players want a finished (in the sense of "polished") product. RPGs happen in real-time, without editing. Further, in most games, not everyone has all the information (the GM traditionallly knows more than the players).

This means that the "story" is likely to be less polished than somethign that would appear in other media. For most folks, that's a feature, not a bug (I find RPGs more immersive in some ways because of this, than most books or movies).

I think you're wrong that "creating story" is somehow in conflict with freedom of action. That's no more true in RPG's than it is in books or movies -- there are a lot of well known techniques for creating recognizable stories that involve no railroading or pre-determined plot.

Summary:

1) Use the term "story," but accept that people may have negative connotations or slightly different definitions.

2) Look at the problems with story as GM skill issue, rather than an innate conflict

Cheers,
-E.

I'm liking this discussion, especially the initial post by Settembrini, and the last post by E.  

Not ready to weigh in yet.

Once again we flirt with disaster by not having a solid definition of "story" to work from.  

Others have remarked that a recounting of game events in narrative form can happen with any game, not just those in which a fictional role is assumed by the players. ("Then Texas, using artful cunning and its connection with the fell gods of yore, drove the nails into Oklahoma's coffin with its next drive.")  Can it be said that there are football players for whom story is a major component of play?

More importantly, what the fuck does story mean in the context of a game wherein any of the players can up stumps and wreck any plot, rising action, denouement or climax they could build to/experience?

Most importantly, do the different sides in this issue have anything to say to each other?  I would put forward that the basic assumptions that each group works from are so different that they will forever talk past each other.

"If you do C, then you must restrict the presence of F."

"Wrong.  You can do M all day without restricting B."

Arguments ensue wherein neither side can communicate with the other.  Language, experience and the very matter of what an RPG is to each group all come into conflict, allowing for no common points of conversation.

In these arguments it's not that we're shifting the goalposts, it's that we're not even on the same fucking field.

Wow. I must confess, seeing your name attached as thread starter, Settembrini, I expected something a lot less...thoughtful, (EDITTED IN: Particularly in regards to the meeting of 'story' and 'game'). I am more than pleasantly surprised.

Not only is this one of the most sensible and reasonable things I've seen you post - though I admit to not following your posting history closely - it's one of the better things on story in RPGs that I recall ever reading.

Big agreement on the 'axis of exchange'. Not to harp too much on a popular choice, but DitV is generally regarded to generate dramatic, issue-laden story. It gets a great deal of praise for this. But there is a point where the mechanics tell you that you may not decided to keep talking about the issue; you are forced to escalate to physical interaction or surrender your point. Sure, 'physical' can be a hug, as is often pointed out, so you still have some freedom of choice; however, that's too far along the dramatic structure side of the axis for me.

Additionally, one hell of a followup by E., and I'm interested in Tony's weighing in on this; I rarely agree with you, Tony, but you make some solid points with great frequency.

QuoteSo ... like ... Diplomacy?

Yes and No. The boardgame uses MoR during negotiation, but uses a regular rules system to see what really happens next. People with a Diplomacy history will know that many a gam degenerates into moves only under certain circumstances. Still with the many Tolkien fans in early diplomacy play by mail scene, this is a very important line of tradition for RPGs.

QuoteBTW, I did not have a wargaming background,

Of course, but you took most of the trapppings of the wargame mindset and incorporated them into your vision of the game, I'd say. And sure, Gary and Moldvay did stuff the wargamey way. My point is not: Only Grognards do it right. I say: Those Veteran Mini-Pushers wrote the text, thereby you have to play like them, or definitely change the aim of what you are doing. This started to happen very early, as can be seen in the games being published. Quite understandably, as the themes of adventure games are the themes covered by story media. It`s a built-in clash of aims.

QuoteStory is a useful word because it's probably the way most of the world would express a common goal of role-playing gaming: that is, to produce an enjoyable fiction with certain literary elements.

just because you say it, it doesn't make it any more true.

but:

Quote1) Interesting characters who are consistent and well drawn
2) A sequence of events that is meaningful in some identifiably human way (e.g. important beyond the win/lose conditions of a war game)
3) Reasonably standard structure (action rises to climax, climax occurs, coda follows)

already is a definition of what you mean by story. Thus, you move around the foremost reason for abandoning the word as useless for debate: You define it for your case!
And then I'm with you. There are people looking and getting this out of RPGs. Which works well, because with the penultimate weapon, the MoR, you can do any cool or stinkin'  shit you want.

QuoteRPG's -- most of them, anyway -- are pretty good at delivering this.

No, the MoR is. RPGs happen to use it a lot, but traditionally for other stuff than that.

QuoteSummary:

1) Use the term "story," but accept that people may have negative connotations or slightly different definitions.

2) Look at the problems with story as GM skill issue, rather than an innate conflict

@1) I`m with you. I still think a word which needs to be defined before further talking about it has basically lost it`s power as a shorthand though

@2) That`s wrong. See, the conflict is there, no matter who has to bear the brunt of the clash of aims. In your model the GM has to bear it. Okay, happens a lot, but this doesn't make the underlying lines of conflict go away.

Quote from: SettembriniYes and No. The boardgame uses MoR during negotiation, but uses a regular rules system to see what really happens next. People with a Diplomacy history will know that many a gam degenerates into moves only under certain circumstances.

But that's still people talking to each other in order to resolve what will happen next in a make-believe situation, isn't it?

Does it matter to their definition whether they're talking in a way that's structured by mechanical rules?